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Hardware

Taiwan Restricts Russia, Belarus To CPUs Under 25 MHz Frequency (tomshardware.com) 194

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: From now on, Russian and Belarusian entities can only buy CPUs operating at below 25 MHz and offering performance of up to 5 GFLOPS from Taiwanese companies. This essentially excludes all modern technology, including microcontrollers for more or less sophisticated devices. Due to restrictions imposed on exports to Russia by the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union, leading Taiwanese companies were among the first to cease working with Russia after the country started full-scale war against Ukraine in late February. This week Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) formally published its list of high-tech products that are banned from exportation to Russia and Belarus, which prevents all kinds of Taiwan-produced high-tech devices as well as tools used to make chips (whether or not they use technologies originated from the U.S., U.K., or E.U., which were already covered by restrictions) to be exported to the aggressive nation. [...]

Starting today, Russian entities cannot buy chips that meet one of the following conditions from Taiwanese companies, reports DigiTimes:

- Has performance of 5 GFLOPS. To put it into context, Sony's PlayStation 2 released in 2000 had peak performance of around 6.2 FP32 GFLOPS.
- Operates at 25 MHz or higher.
- Has an ALU that is wider than 32 bits.
- Has an external interconnection with a data transfer rate of 2.5 MB/s or over.
- Has more than 144 pins.
- Has basic gate propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanosecond.

In addition to being unable to buy chips from Taiwanese companies, Russian entities will not be able to get any chip production equipment from Taiwan, which includes scanners, scanning electron microscopes, and all other types of semiconductor tools that can be used to make chips locally or perform reverse engineering (something that the country pins a lot of hopes on).

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Taiwan Restricts Russia, Belarus To CPUs Under 25 MHz Frequency

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  • by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @05:10PM (#62584722)
    About the best PC CPU you can get is a 386.
    I wonder where you can download a copy of DOS 6 and Win 3.1?


    People of Russia. Remember Putin did this to you.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > People of Russia. Remember Putin did this to you.

      > DOS 6 and Win 3.1?

      and Bill Gates did this to us.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      About the best PC CPU you can get is a 386.
      I wonder where you can download a copy of DOS 6 and Win 3.1?

      Well, not all 386s either. I've used a 386 40MHz and that machine screamed on Windows 3.1. But they can adopt a 486 as well - there were 486SX-25 processors.

      But ... nah. You really wanted a 33MHz 386 for Windows 3.1.

    • About the best PC CPU you can get is a 386. I wonder where you can download a copy of DOS 6 and Win 3.1?

      A Russian activist said Putin is taking the Russian economy back to the 1990s. Why not make it official with beige '90s boxes, Doom parties, techno raves, and lots of beige Dockers.

    • To be fair, a 386 will be an upgrade for many
    • Dont remember the 386 days anymore... I vaguely recall it was only DOS available at that time. Windows 3.1 was 486 days... no?
      • by madbrain ( 11432 )

        I remember those days, upgrading from a 286 to a 386SX and then 486DX between 1989 - 1992 .
        486 were quite expensive in the early 1990s. 386s were much more common for that era. RAM was extremely pricey as much.
        I bought a 486DX with 16MB of RAM as a teenager to run OS/2 2.0 in 1992. That cost about $4000 back then.

        Interestingly, Wikipedia says i386 production only stopped in 2007. I had no idea it went on for that long. 22 years is quite a run for a CPU. I don't think any new PCs used any 386 variant past 19

      • 3.1 ran on a 286.

    • by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Thursday June 02, 2022 @04:01AM (#62585918) Homepage

      Remember we've had zero legitimate elections for the past 16 years.

      Remember saying anything against this war coul land you in prison for up to 15 years.

      Remember Putler practically owns the army and police and they will fight you hard.

      Remember outspoken Putler's opponents are killed.

      Remember Putler changed the constitution to stay in power until 2036.

      Remember Russians cannot own arms (we can but it's extremely complicated) unlike Americans where you've got mass murders every week.

      Also fuck you for not knowing anything about our country and claiming it's our fault. Russians of Russia are scared brainwashed manipulated rats.

      • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Thursday June 02, 2022 @09:44AM (#62586630)
        I'm deeply sorry that you have to live under those conditions.

        I don't think the comment you were replying to meant to imply it's the fault of the Russian people. I can't speak for everyone of course, but I think most people realize it's not the fault of the people but the government, and more specifically certain people in the government. Rather, I think his comment was more about hoping the people of Russia will do something to change the situation even if it's not their fault. Those of us outside of Russia want to change the situation, but that desire has to be tempered against the fact that Russia is a nuclear power.
  • This triggered a memory of when I was young, when we found out that even though everyone else was using 386 CPUs at the time (the 486 had not been released yet if memory serves correctly) that the KGB only had old Apple II and Apple II clone computers on their desks.
  • Hey Russia, I have some 386's @ 16Mhz for you at slightly inflated prices! Act now and Ill include some windows 3.0!

    • Hey Russia, I have some 386's @ 16Mhz for you at slightly inflated prices! Act now and Ill include some windows 3.0!

      Hard pass comrade, rather have a 486DX-25 with Win95

  • Accurate missile guidance systems can be made within those restrictions.
    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @05:21PM (#62584782)
      so that Russia doesn't have the cash to keep the war in Ukraine going. If they divert too much from keeping their country afloat there'll be a coup. It won't end in democracy, but at the very least Putin will hang if that happens. And that's if he's lucky. There are worse ways to die.
      • You know what the US did to end the war in Japan? They bombed the fuck out of them. And then they nuked them. All that without 25 MHz frequency CPUs.

        Some whataboutery for you.
        • While true, the US in 1945 didn't have to worry about other countries freezing us out of the world economy or cutting us off from vital suppies - pretty much everyone was behind getting Japan to surrender.

          • by sxpert ( 139117 )

            the point is, russia doesn't really give a shit about US "sanctions". they have all the materials they need on their territory, and produce sufficient food.
            the US are deluded to believe they'll win this one in the long term.

      • by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

        I heard PutiePie's biggest fear is to end up having his body dragged through the streets of Moscow.

        In the spirit of reconciliation, I offer the following compromise: drag half his body through Moscow and half through Kyiv.

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        If they divert too much from keeping their country afloat there'll be a coup.

        At the moment, though, his approval ratings have increased, not dropped.

        Don't forget that outside pressure tends to forge a nation together, not split it apart. It sometimes works to cause an uprising, but it's the exception.

      • There was another Vlad once.

        Shish kebab anyone?

    • And let's hope they don't figure out how to overclock those CPUs....
    • Accurate missile guidance systems can be made within those restrictions.

      Considering how abysmally [reuters.com] Russian guided missiles have performed, they have a long way to go [nytimes.com] even if they can afford these chips. Hitting a toilet on a beach [coventrytelegraph.net] with a $5 million missile is about as Russian as you can get when talking about accuracy.

      Russia is so desperate for chips, they've pulled them out of stolen washing machines [yahoo.com]. If they can't get much performance out of a modern chip, they are in for a world of hurt using something from 20+ years ago.

      • by Slayer ( 6656 )

        That beach toilet was - unfortunately - a relevant target, because the deputy mayor of Odessa happened to take a leak there while the missile hit. I certainly do not think, that Russia has a viable future, especially if they keep going like this, but we should definitely not underestimate their current capabilities in inflict pain and suffering.

        These restrictions on chip deliveries will not make much of an impact at the battle field right now, but it will wear down their economy over time. Remember, that th

    • Accurate missile guidance systems can be made within those restrictions.

      Only if they have enough 50+ year old programmers who still know how to write clean efficient code. Getting hard to find these days.

      • by sxpert ( 139117 )

        that's just a consequence of the idiotic US school system.
        Russian kids trounce US kids in all the sciences.
        hell, a large population of US kids believe that the earth is flat !

      • IMO, older, more experienced devs such as myself tend to write VASTLY cleaner and more efficient code.

        In part because, back in the day, we didn't have any other choice.

        But also because we've seen countless fads come and go, and have learned to recognize when new things bring genuine value to the table, versus when they simply repeat the failed experiments of the past.

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Interplanetary (and arguably now interstellar) probes that navigate around planets that are 4.5 billion km away, operate for over four decades, and *still* aim an antenna sufficiently well to communicate with a small blue dot that is over 14.5 billion km away can also be made within those restrictions.

      Doesn't mean it's going to be easy or quick to do though, which I guess is kind of the point of the sanction. This is all about depriving Russia of the tech they have grown accustomed to and forcing them to
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        You think that's impressive, you wouldn't believe how fast a thrown rock solves Einstein's equations.

      • You think oil, gas, and grain prices are high now? Just imagine what they are going to be if this war and accompanying sanctions continue to be in place for several more months, or even stretch into years.

        There's a global energy shortage coming if we don't see things improve in a hurry.

        In the USA we see a moronic federal government decide to react to high fuel prices by increasing the amount of corn turned into ethanol fuel. That's not a wise thing to do.

        This energy shortage is largely self imposed. Russia did a lot of damage in Ukraine that will keep food and fuel flowing out of that region of the world. That did nothing to stop people from producing food and fuel in other parts of the world. What stopp

    • by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

      Not so much C3 nodes or the things that make platforms like the S-400 or the T-14's "APS" work. DSPs for radar, IR, sonar, etc. are crucial and are restricted.

      Left in place long enough and this will degrade their media production and video surveillance systems. So many cheap NVR systems are based on things like the Hi3536 or similar SoCs; they have Arm Cortex CPUs at their heart, usually multi-core, usually running low-GHz clocks. All restricted now. Modern media camera platforms are similarly outfitted.

      Int

    • Accurate missile guidance systems can be made within those restrictions.

      Of course they can. But missile guidance is not rocket science. Well obviously it is, but one of my friends implemented a fully autonomous missile guidance system in 6 months for a university thesis. It is trivial and within the capabilities of any university student to do with very simple mathematics.

      Point is: It doesn't decide wars. Reconnaissance decides wars. No point in having missile guidance if you don't know where you're shooting them, and implementing full realtime video analysis cannot be done on

  • I'm sure it would still violate some of the other restrictions, but curious if not, why not.
    • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @06:11PM (#62584912) Journal

      25 Mhz is close the record low frequency for an Intel CPU of this decade. Microcontrollers like you'd see in an Arduino or Raspberry Pi 2040 can go all the way down to lees than 1 Hz.

      The basic processing logic can go as slow as you want. There are a few blocks like the random number generator that have analog considerations and expect a clock tick to come along every now again. Which isn't to say I know that the rng specifically has a lower limit, but I can see how it *might* based on my understanding of the circuit. A modern INtel CPU has a LOT of different blocks doing a lot of different things, some that have considerations on the analog domain.

    • by Pembers ( 250842 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @06:12PM (#62584916) Homepage

      I assume that 25MHz refers to how fast you could clock it, not how fast you do clock it. In principle, there shouldn't be any reason why you can't clock a modern CPU at 25Mhz, but some operations might time out. For instance, the RAM in modern computers is basically banks of billions of tiny capacitors, each of which can hold a charge or not, to represent a 1 or a 0. The charge leaks away quite quickly, and has to be periodically refreshed. The refresh interval is normally derived from the system clock, so if it's happening at a few percent of the frequency that it's meant to, the charge might drain before the chip has a chance to work out whether it needs to put the charge back. So your RAM might appear to always contain all zeroes.

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Yes, but you just need to read the summary, not even TFA to see that there are more limitations that exclude pretty much every modern CPU or GPU.

      • Modern processors use all manner of clock domains, and they aren't necessarily dependent on each other.
    • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @06:22PM (#62584942)

      They could consult with CenturyLink - from what I've seen, CenturyLink is quite experienced in offering and maintaining very slow technology.

  • by chas.williams ( 6256556 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @05:41PM (#62584836)
    With all the chip shortages, does this ban actually do anything?
    • by nhtshot ( 198470 )

      I wish I had mod points right now. I'm not sure if your comment is better moderated as funny or insightful.. equal shots of both.

    • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

      All it does is create incentive to make one OEM (bidding for TSMC capacity window) snitch on another OEM if they try to sell to russia. This makes smuggling of base components at a scale surprisingly difficult (lest your competitor documents your trade chain and bam, you've nowhere to manufacture your chip).

      Economic maxim: Only things reasonably in surplus (no production monopolies) are easy to smuggle. If a monopoly tells you to not resell to somebody, you simply don't.

  • by buck-yar ( 164658 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @06:36PM (#62584962)

    Looks like the Arduino line can be sent to Russia, Atmega 328 at 16mhz.

    • by Arethan ( 223197 )

      Fuck that noise. I have projects to build. They can use 8-bit PIC

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      Arduino prices are already 2-3 times higher than they used to be - this is bad news for hobbyists!

      I guess it's time to move on to more modern devices like ESP32 and Pi Pico. But sometimes the simple old-fashioned 5V ATMega is just easier.

      • this is bad news for hobbyists!

        No, it may give them the kick they need to abandon this old architecture and move on to something more modern. I've already given up on AVR and moved to ARM. Same price, faster, far more functionality, just as easy to use.

        • by quenda ( 644621 )

          No, it may give them the kick they need to abandon this old architecture and move on to something more modern. I've already given up on AVR and moved to ARM. Same price, faster, far more functionality, just as easy to use.

          But then you might as well get something like a Pi Zero, and have a full modern OS ... Those $40 phones are tempting - you get a battery, display, case touchscreen included. I/O over USB-OTG is easy. So now you are using the bloated monstrosity that is Android for your embedded project :-)

          As a coder, I actually enjoy the retro appeal of an 8-bit processor. It makes a good first step for teaching kids. But I'm giving in to the inevitable, and trying a Pi Pico.

  • The space shuttles ran on these devices although the exploded somewhat half way through their voyage.
    If the use case is for Russian rockets, that fact might not be such a problem.

    • Nonsense. Shuttles ran IBM AP-101 computers in a redundant structure of four machines, plus a fifth fallback with independently written code. Machine architecture was derived from System 360. Various portable/laptop machines were carried for less critical tasks that could be rerun if disrupted by radiation.
  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @07:35PM (#62585054)

    Just ban all exports of chips to Russia and Belarus period regardless of power.

    • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @10:56PM (#62585494)

      Just ban all exports of chips to Russia and Belarus period regardless of power.

      No can do. In the year of our lord 2022, you need chips for certain things like ECG machines, defibrilators, water/electricity/naturalgas SCADA sensors... You know...

      Embargoing those chips would make the west seem inhuman, and galvanize the russian population around putin.

      You need to embargo only chips with military applications, and those that keep the economy growing to line the pockets of the oligarchs, without leavoing the russian people without electricity gas and medical equipent/services.

      PS: Living in venezuela, under sanctions too.

    • Just ban all exports of chips to Russia and Belarus period regardless of power.

      The point is not to fund the war machine, and to cripple higher technology, not to make citizens freeze in their homes because the makers of gas boilers can't get the crappy 4MHz microcontroller they need to control the boilers.

    • by Slayer ( 6656 )

      China does have decent fabs, but nothing compared to Taiwan, Europe or the USA. The performance limits imposed here can be easily enforced by these "western" nations, whereas China will happily supply their homegrown chips to Russia as long as they can pay for them. Imposing sanctions on low performance chips will neither gain the west anything, nor will it be a restriction of any kind for Russia.

  • Something is off here. Does not even make sense for FPGAs.

    This is probably 5MFLOP. Basically an original Arduino (with an FPU added?) is the max they can get legally. Even a low low end Cortex M0 is typically 100MHz or higher.

  • The worst chip shortages hitting the auto and other low-tech industries (smart light switches for example) are in chips made with much older processes - 40nm and larger features. This is going to force Russia to go back to chips made on these processes. I think a bunch of folks in the auto industry are having an oh-$#*@ moment right now.
  • So, how many Arduino's does it take to make a Switchblade missile?
  • Hmm... computers at 25MHz huh? I remember having one of these back in 1994.
  • I find this story suspect for a simple reason.

    Russia is a major exporter of neon, most of it to Tiawan. No neon no chips.

  • So the world is essentially forcing Russia to create its own semiconductor industry. Which will take a decade or two at least, even under good circumstance (one reason why Europe, for example, hasn't done it and the US barely) and it will cost many billions (the other reason). With sanctions and all, that's an optimistic estimate and Russia will probably be 30 years behind the rest of the world's tech for decades. On the other hand, with relations already fucked up, they won't hesitate to go back to cold wa

  • Maybe with limited computing power, there will be a growing market for video games that focus on the gaming aspects instead of fancy graphics. I miss the 8-bits and 16/32-bits era!
  • of these chips !

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